"That's the loss condition we inevitably reach eventually, where Keltham has enough information to figure out the exact world he's living in, but we can make that harder for him.  He won't jump to that conclusion right away.  It's like - putting extra coinflips on top of beef for lunch, merchant ships coming in from Absalom instead of merchant ships from anywhere."

"And Keltham isn't a perfect dath ilani.  It may be possible to confuse him enough and win.  If I have a sufficiently powerful headband, and he doesn't use any enhancements himself, I mean."

"Right now, Keltham has seen evidence that, if the Conspiracy is real, it's not actually that competent, because we weren't.  The first time we do something smart, before any other time he's expecting us to be smart, we've got to get as much mileage as we can, out of that, because afterwards he'll be on the lookout for smart things."

"And besides getting him not to use enhancements, you yourself said that the most confusing thing we could do to him -"

"That's the loss condition we inevitably reach eventually, where Keltham has enough information to figure out the exact world he's living in, but we can make that harder for him.  He won't jump to that conclusion right away.  It's like - putting extra coinspins on top of duck for lunch, merchant ships coming in from Absalom instead of merchant ships from anywhere."

"And Keltham isn't a perfect dath ilani.  It may be possible to confuse him enough and win.  If I have a sufficiently powerful headband, and he doesn't use any enhancements himself, I mean."

"Right now, Keltham has seen evidence that, if the Conspiracy is real, it's not actually that competent, because we weren't.  The first time we do something smart, before any other time he's expecting us to be smart, we've got to get as much mileage as we can, out of that, because afterwards he'll be on the lookout for smart things."

"And besides getting him not to use enhancements, you yourself said that the most confusing thing we could do to him -"

"That's the loss condition we inevitably reach eventually, where Keltham has enough information to figure out the exact world he's living in, but we can make that harder for him.  He won't jump to that conclusion right away.  It's like - putting extra coinspins on top of duck for lunch, merchant ships coming in from Absalom instead of merchant ships from anywhere.  A more complicated idea is one that he has to assign lower probability to start."

"And Keltham isn't a perfect dath ilani.  It may be possible to confuse him enough and win.  If I have a sufficiently powerful headband, and he doesn't use any enhancements himself, I mean."

"Right now, Keltham has seen evidence that, if the Conspiracy is real, it's not actually that competent, because we weren't.  The first time we do something smart, before any other time he's expecting us to be smart, we've got to get as much mileage as we can, out of that, because afterwards he'll be on the lookout for smart things."

"And besides getting him not to use enhancements, you yourself said that the most confusing thing we could do to him -"